5 years after Bernat Mill fire: Ruined dreams in the ashes

Tia Hetu still remembers when her phone rang at 7:15 a.m. five years ago, alerting her to a fire in the Bernat Mill complex where her gymnastics center was located. “I just threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt thinking maybe there was smoke damage,” said Hetu, owner of the Gymnastics Place. “I really didn...

Tia Hetu still remembers when her phone rang at 7:15 a.m. five years ago, alerting her to a fire in the Bernat Mill complex where her gymnastics center was located.

“I just threw on some jeans and a sweatshirt thinking maybe there was smoke damage,” said Hetu, owner of the Gymnastics Place. “I really didn’t worry about it.”

Her hopes quickly evaporated when she reached the mill.

“When I first got there was exactly when the windows in my gym blew out,” Hetu said. “I was just numb. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Hetu stayed at the mill throughout that day — July 21, 2007.

Firefighters worked to keep the flames, that some said leapt 20 to 30 feet into the sky, contained to the 420,000-square-foot complex.

Five years later, her business is thriving on River Road in Uxbridge. But, mill co-owner Leonard “Cappy” Fournier Jr. estimated more than half of the 65 or so tenants were never able to reopen, having lost their businesses and products just as the country was heading into a recession.

The mill building, where workers once made uniforms for soldiers in World War I, is still partially standing, with brick walls, some steel beams and a large concrete pad marking the site. Workers still mow the grass around the mill’s ruins.

Fournier is co-owner of Capron Corp., a commercial property management company that bought the mill in 2004. He said he had every room rented in the mill at the time of the fire and a waiting list of 35 businesses.

Since buying the complex, his company transformed it from industrial use to an eclectic mix of artist studios, antique stores and other shops. He had plans to add a fourth floor that would have housed condos.

“I was devastated because we worked so hard at it,” said Fournier, who lives in Ashland. “I felt horrible for the businesses.”

Other buildings suffered less severe damage and are still intact, but all the tenants left after their business was disrupted by a lengthy fire investigation, he said.

Fournier said he has had discussions with companies, including life science firms, but attracting new tenants has been a challenge.

“It’s a desirable site, but a bad economy,” he said of the complex, located along a rail line just off Rte. 16.

Fournier said he is still committed to rebuilding. He hopes to keep some of the old brick walls in a future development, preserving part of a building that dates to the 19th century.

Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce President Jeannie Hebert said she would love to see manufacturing return to the mill site, paying tribute to the valley’s roots as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

Page 2 of 3 - Uxbridge Fire Chief William Kessler said he would like to see the site developed commercially to decrease the tax burden on homeowners.

“I still remember it almost as if it was yesterday just because of the significance of the fire,” said Kessler, who was deputy fire chief at the time. “Every time you drive by it, you just think back to how many businesses were in there.”

Kessler said the fire was the largest he has handled in Uxbridge, probably rising to the equivalent of 16 alarms. Fire departments from 50 communities helped fight the fire, which left 500 people out of work, the Daily News reported in 2007.

Investigators determined that welding likely sparked the fire and part of a sprinkler system was not working. Fournier said insurance investigators thought the cause could have also been electrical.

Kessler said the sprinkler issue and wood floors helped the fire spread. Numerous locked doors and a large building also hampered firefighters’ efforts to initially locate the fire, he said.

Since the blaze, Uxbridge has put plans in place to handle 10 alarms worth of mutual aid instead of five. Some towns in the Milford/Franklin and Westborough areas were not called to the scene because they were not part of Uxbridge’s mutual aid plan and state coordinators assumed their resources had been used, Kessler said.

Deputy State Fire Marshal Peter Ostroskey, who was the Uxbridge fire chief at the time of the fire, said the blaze highlighted issues many New England communities face as mills are renovated and subdivided.

“They’re a centerpiece of the community, but there’s a real challenge before us to see them operate in a way that’s safe,” he said.

Each business in a mill like the Bernat complex has its own hazards with which firefighters must contend, Ostroskey said.

Bill Albin, a retired Uxbridge fire chief making a video in recognition of the fifth anniversary for local public access television, said abandoned mill buildings are also challenging because they often have old oil-soaked floors and are poorly maintained.

Albin said he took video of the fire, cleanup and what the mill looked like before.

“There was so much stuff inside the mill, some beautiful shops,” he said. “They had just seemed to get rolling with businesses in there.”

At the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce, the fire prompted the organization to offer an academy for small businesses, said President Jeannie Hebert.

“Some of the businesses that were lost had no insurance and didn’t have proper record keeping,” Hebert said. “It was very difficult for them to recoup what they had.”

Despite having insurance, Madonna Terlizzi was never able to rebuild a fabric store she lost in the fire, although she still teaches sewing classes from her Uxbridge home.

Page 3 of 3 - “My whole store was decimated,” Terlizzi said. “I watched everything I worked hard for burn to the ground.”

Corinna Taylor, owner of Bernat Mill Antiques, was able to reopen, first at Linwood Mill in Northbridge and now at Scott Mill on Elmdale Road in Uxbridge. But, she had to sell her Milford home after the fire because she and her husband lost their jobs in the blaze.

The current Uxbridge resident said she kept the Bernat name to pay tribute to the mill.

“I worry almost every day that if there’s a fire here, this is another old mill,” Taylor said. “But, there aren’t a lot of places other than old mills. We would look horrible in a strip mall.”

(Brian Benson can be reached at 508-626-3964 or bbenson@wickedlocal.com.)